The Old Man is a character found in the original The Legend of Zelda for the NES, and also in BS Zelda for the Satellaview. The Old Man was a bald character who wore a red gown and had a white beard in the game. The player could usually find the old man in dungeons or inside caves, usually between two torches (if the player attacked the old man in a dungeon location, the two torches would defend him by shooting fireballs). The Old Man was used for several things in the game, ranging from giving the player items to help him in his quest to giving the player advice on how to move forward in the game. He also gambled with Link for rupees, and at times would demand that Link pay a "door repair charge;" a slightly humorous reference to the fact that in order to access him, Link had either burned down a bush or bombed a wall. There is speculation that the old man who teaches spells to Link in the various villages of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is this same old man, or at least based from him. It is generally believed that all the Old Men in the game are the same person; this is somewhat backed up by a translated quotation of the Old Man in the first cave location in the remake in which he says "heed my words", referring only to himself. He also refers to the Old Woman as 'the' Old Woman, meaning there might be one of her as well.
Many people who resemble the Old man also appear in the Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages game. This time, they wear hooded robes that are either green, blue, or red and have long white beards, giving them a wizard-like appearance. Most of them hide underground bellow bushes, which Link, once again, must burn down to access them. Some of them give Link Rupees so Link won't reveal his location, while others take Rupees from Link, yet again, for "paying to fix his door". In Seasons, one of them gives Link an item that he uses to gain access to Tarm Ruins, and two of them appear in dungeons to give Link some information. In Ages, in the past a number of Old Men appear in the Eyeglass Island Library in some sort of gathering. One of them also gives Link the Fairy Dust if he completes a difficult puzzle.
The Old Man is known for his vague and/or badly translated advice in the original version (one of his most famous pieces of advice is "DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE", meaning that the Dodongo enemy had a weakness to bombs). It should be noted that nearly all of the game's text resembled this, not just the Old Man's quotations. In the versions of the game on the GameCube Zelda promotion disc, Game Boy Advance, and Virtual Console, the translation was corrected.
